New York Comic Con 2012: Carrie Panel Report

Chloë Moretz, Julianne Moore and Kimberly Peirce offer a preview of the new adaptation of the classic Stephen King novel.

Very few people remember that a modern day Carrie TV movie was made about ten years ago. But everyone remembers the 1976 Brian De Palma Carrie film with Sissy Spacek in the title role. Carrie remains one of the most famous adaptations of Stephen King’s work.

At the 2012 New York Comic Con, the director of the upcoming Carrie remake, Kimberly Peirce was quick to give a shout out to De Palma and express her admiration for his film. But Peirce also stressed that her take would go in a different direction.

“I’m friends with [De Palma] and I am a huge fan of his movie,” said Peirce. “For me it was reading Stephen King’s absolutely fantastic novel and falling madly in love with his depiction of Carrie, Carrie’s plight, Carrie’s mother and all of the other people in the story. And just thinking ‘my god, this is such a fantastic story, I need to bring this to life. And I need to bring it to life in a modern way as it would be done now just because it was so much fun and it’s so good.' That was always what I went back to.”

Some of the early footage from the film shown to the crowd suggested that Carrie’s rampage will be on a much wider scale than in the original De Palma adaptation. And the clip was met with wild cheers.

Joining Peirce on stage was the new Carrie herself, Chloë Grace Moretz; along with Julianne Moore who will portray Carrie’s mother, Margaret and producer Kevin Misher.

Regarding the inevitable comparisons to the original Carrie, Moore expressed her admiration for her young costar.

“One of the things that was exciting about working with Chloë is that she’s an actual adolescent,” related Moore. “Sissy — who was so wonderful — was 26 when she made the original Carrie. Here’s somebody who is actually a teenager in a story about being a teenager. That for me was I think incredibly lucky to have someone who is in that stage of her life.”

Perhaps the most infamous moment in Carrie is the bloodbath; which has already been teased (including in the picture above). When asked about it by the moderator, Moretz said “it was probably the most fun for about the first two weeks of it. After that it just got sticky and wet and it was like 40 degrees outside and it was freezing. But it was amazing, because each day in the blood it became something else. And everyday, there was a lot things that we refer to as ‘the wet blood,’ ‘the fire blood,’ ‘the dry blood’ and all the different type of blood.”

“And we had to have a big selection because you don’t shoot chronologically,” continued Moretz. “Each day, the blood became part of who you are. And I just got used to coming home every night covered in blood. The people at the front desk were like ‘Wow, she must have a really hard day at work!’”

Peirce and Moore noted that Margaret’s abuse of her daughter stems from her isolation and briefly mentioned Margaret’s past (as revealed in the original novel) in a religious sect that wasn’t strict enough for her. Now Margaret’s only community is her daughter and the way she badly treats her is Margaret’s attempt to hang on to Carrie.

To create the bond between Moretz.and her onscreen mother, both actresses explained that they tried to have fun with each other before taking on the more serious and disturbing aspects of the script.

“Julianne is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet,” asserted Moretz. “For a character like this where we would have to go from like laughing and making jokes about stupid stuff and then she’d have to be stabbing me. So it was a really funny kind of relationship we had.”

“I wanted it to be safe and comfortable and fun,” added Moore. “Because I feel that like the more connected you are as people, the further you can go as actors. I felt like as long as Chloë felt safe with me, we would feel safe doing the stunts together.”

Both Moretz and Peirce noted that there was a point during the filming in which Peirce had to get Moretz to play Carrie younger after some initial concerns that the 15 year old Moretz couldn’t play the nearly 18 year old Carrie. By then, it was no longer a question as to whether Moretz could pull off the role.

“One of the things to note is that it’s an R rated move,” said Misher. “Which I know you guys will all be excited about. “So [Peirce and the actresses] could depict the work of the book accurately. You didn’t have to pull your punches and I think that’s one of the exciting things about what these guys have done.”